GO LEFT THEN STRAIGHT AHEAD is a series of paintings that artist Ian Victoriano produced between 2020 and 2022. The title comes from a phrase Victoriano encountered in a foreign language learning app, feeling that the phrase seemed to provide an answer to questions that most artists (or even non-artists) ask themselves: “Where do we go from here? Where are we headed? What do I do now?”

The work in the show feature representative figures of humans, animals, insects or objects, or combinations of these set against a landscape, a part of an interior scene, or in limbo. The shapes and the things they represent transform or merge into one another to create strange figures, or partially disappear into the background.  Sometimes, the images may appear to be totally non-representational.

Victoriano sees these figures as creatures from an imaginary world, places where he might pass by, or scenes or situations that he may encounter as he “goes left then straight ahead.”

In coming up with the images, Victoriano starts with random lines, shapes, gestures, or drawings of relatively detailed scenes, then proceeds by adding other shapes, lines and gestures as a reaction to previous marks on the canvas. He often rotates the canvas in doing this to be able to see the marks differently and to come up with other visions, sometimes only to return to the original image.

In these paintings, he tried to use flat and mostly ready-mixed colors, and explore the idioms of pop art, combined with gestural marks and hard-edge geometric shapes. This is a bit different from what Victoriano typically does with his watercolor works using the same approach.

Some viewers may be able to relate to some of the paintings better when viewed in another orientation. Some may see different things from those that are portrayed. Regardless of how his work is perceived, Victoriano seeks to stimulate dynamic visions and a multitude of interpretations.